Chapter 3
Jax
The cell reception in Ballybeg was about as reliable as my golf swing on a windy day, but I finally managed to find one corner of my room right by a window where I could hold a call without it cutting out.
I watched the rain batter the rolling hills that were somehow still postcard-perfect with my phone pressed to my ear because my earbuds weren’t charged.
“You’re gonna have to explain that. You know I don’t do social media.” I ran a hand through my hair and looked around the tiny room, which was surprisingly charming, and I wasn’t even into the whole cozy-and-cramped aesthetic.
“She said you cheated on her?”
“Who said that?” I struggled to remember who I was rumored to have been dating recently.
As a rule, I didn’t date.
I had sex when the mood struck and a suitable partner was available, but spending time alone with women who weren’t friends or family was off the table. Which meant I couldn’t cheat on anyone. I wasn’t with anyone.
“Francia Agnelli,” Brad ground out.
“Francia?” I wondered if I had heard Brad wrong. She was a model turned actress, and I’d probably spent a minute with her in the large scheme of life.
“Yes,” Brad screeched. “She talked to Howard Stern and told him you broke her heart when you fucked someone else.”
“I barely fucked her,” I protested.
This is why I didn’t date.
Women be crazy!
“Well, according to her, you’re the love of her life. She even fuckin’ cried.”
“There’s nothing between Francia and me. It was casual. Very casual.”
“You need to make a statement,” Brad demanded.
“Nope. She’s the one turning this into a circus, not me.” I didn’t give statements about my personal life. Brad knew that, my PR team knew that, and the PGL PR team knew that.
Brad sighed on the other end of the line. “Jax, you’re a professional golfer. You know as well as I do that what happens off the course gets just as much attention as what happens on it. This will hurt your sponsorships.”
“Okay.” I didn’t give a shit. But Brad did. And so did my team—the people whose paychecks depended on me. “Look, Francia’s got herself a movie deal now. She’s probably riding my name for all it’s worth.”
“If the tabloids think Jax Caldwell broke the heart of the latest Sports Illustrated cover model, then—”
“Brad, there will be no statement.”
“Jax, listen, I—”
“Brad, you’re the one not—"
“This is news,” he cut me off. “The paps are looking for you. I got a call from someone at TMZ asking if you were back in Charleston.” Brad paused for a moment. “Where the fuck are you?”
“In a bunker.”
I heard Brad sigh rather audibly. “Jax,” he warned.
“I was driving around Ireland after that charity golf thing in Killarney when Nikolai’s car decided it had had enough. Now I’m stuck in a village called Ballybeg—the ass-end of nowhere—my phone clinging to two miserable bars of service.”
“Ballybeg? How big is it?”
How the fuck was I supposed to know?
“Population: half a sheep and a goat.” And a very sexy redhead.
Brad chuckled. “Perfect. Stay there. Lay low. You don’t have anything for at least six weeks.”
In six weeks, I had an appearance for a sponsor in London. I had thought of going home to Charleston because my friend Amara was pregnant, but maybe I could stay here for a week or two, and then when Francia was done getting publicity, I could head home.
I leaned against the window and looked down at the faint glow of light spilling on the wet cobblestones as the sun hid behind another dark cloud. There were worse places to be stranded.
“I can’t stay here for six weeks,” I remarked. “I’ve got meetings with the shoe people in Dublin and those golf equipment guys in London. But…maybe for a week or two.”
I’d have to find a way to work out. Maybe I could run up and down those cliffs for cardio and find a gym of sorts to lift weights.
“Right, right,” Brad murmured, and I knew he was looking through my calendar. “Where exactly are you staying?”
“An inn above a pub.”
“Huh?”
I grinned.
I looked around the room again. It was surprisingly nice. I had checked the bathroom, and it had a clawfoot tub and heated floors. What more could a man ask for?
“It’s not a five-star hotel, Brad. But the owner of the pub said she’d leave a chocolate on my pillow if I was good.” I smiled when I thought about Dee.
“Jax, you feelin’ okay?”
“‘Course.”
“You made a fuss last time because your room smelled funny.”
That was at a resort in Florida. “That was because the guy next door was smoking cigars, and my room was smelling funny! And it wasn’t ha-ha funny, more bringing on an asthma attack hilarious, and I don’t even have asthma.”
“Okay, stay at…Bally, what the hell ever! I’m guessing there are no supermodels there?”
“You’d be guessing right.” However, Dee was way classier and sexier than Francia could ever dream of being.
“I’ll deal with the fallout here.”
“You’ll deal with fuck all, Brad. The story will die down. It always does. Francia gets a few minutes of attention, and then we can all return to our regular programming.”
Which was what for me? I had no idea anymore.
I was a professional golfer who had enough family wealth that I didn’t need to work for a living, which was why I didn’t give a shit if my sponsorships were jeopardized.
After ending my call with Brad, I felt strangely light.
It wasn’t like I never took time off. I did. I wasn’t one of those people who believed in killing themselves for a paycheck by working all the time.
I knew players who were either training or doing photo and film shoots for ads or whatever, or doing PR, or playing whatever pro game was their poison.
I was not one of them.
I didn’t need more money.
I played golf because I loved it.
I went to tournaments because I was a competitive motherfucker, and I liked to win.
And if I stopped doing this or was prevented from doing it, what the hell else was there for me to do?
My family expected me to join the Caldwell family business, but that was never my thing. I wasn’t a businessman. If I’d wanted to go down that road, I would’ve done it years ago—back when I fell in love and proposed to Daniela, my Dani, who’d been in my life since we were kids.
She’d been my first and only for the longest time, but she left me because she wanted to marry a stable guy—not someone chasing dreams with nothing but a good golf swing to his name.
Since then, I hadn’t been in relationships—I’d also not been close to my family.
Sure, my father had pulled me back into the fold after I won my first Professional Golf League championship.
That was my family; they wanted you only when you were useful.
I shrugged off the past.
Maybe I did need a break if I was thinking about Dani—something I hadn’t done in a long time.
She had become a reminder that love alone was not enough.
You needed shared values, too. For her, it was family name, status, and money—in that order.
For me, it was following my heart and doing what made me happy.
When I came downstairs around four in the evening, the pub was humming.
The crowd was lively but not exactly raucous.
There was a lot of swearing, loud talking, and chants of slainte.
The brass sconces above the bar threw warm light, and unexpectedly, the smell of something mouthwatering wafted from the kitchen.
Everyone knew everyone. That much was obvious. The music was pop. A young girl, a server, was taking orders.
My Wildcat smiled as she stood behind the bar, pulling pints. I spotted two empty stools and claimed one.
Dee stepped out from behind the bar to greet someone who’d just come in. I found myself sitting beside an elderly man who was clearly on his own.
While Dee chatted with someone I assumed was another vendor—one she actually liked—the old man next to me reached out and slid his hand to her perfectly shaped backside in the tightest pair of jeans imaginable and, honest to fuckin’ God, pinched.
I went still.
Dee did not disappoint.
She turned slowly, eyes narrowing at the grinning old bastard. Without breaking eye contact, she grabbed a bottle of Irish whiskey from the bar, planted a hand on her hip, and tilted her head.
“Liam Murphy,” she said evenly, “if you so much as breathe near my arse again, I’ll smash this bottle over your head.”
“It wasn’t me.” Liam assumed an innocent look and then looked at me. “It was him.”
I straightened. What the fuck?
“Liam Murphy, you think I can’t pick out your gnarly fingers in a butt-pinching lineup?” Dee glowered.
A what? Butt-pinching lineup? Where the fuck was I?
Liam Murphy smiled wide, and his teeth, or dentures, to be precise, were on full display like he was in a Colgate ad. "Ah, come on now, Dee. I’ve not long left in me—ya wouldn’t deny an old fella one of life’s simple pleasures, would ya?"
Dee went nose to nose with him. “You’re gonna die before your time is up if you put your hands on me again.”
“Ah, go on, Dee.” The man beamed guiltily like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “You know I only do it ‘cause I love ya.”
“You’ll love me without your hands.” She jabbed a finger in the air in front of his offending digits. “Sit. Behave, or I’ll have you banned for a month.” She glared at me for good measure as if saying, “You, Yank, you better keep your paws to yourself.”
“I’ll probably be dead in a month,” Liam grumbled.
Dee huffed and went back to her conversation with the vendor.
The man with the gnarly fingers—who Dee could pick out of a lineup—offered his hand to me. “Liam Murphy, dying of lung cancer.”
I shook his hand hesitantly. “Jax Caldwell, stranded tourist.”
Dee walked back to the bar and stood in front of me. “You settled in?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I knew the ma’am pissed her off, and maybe that was why I was planning on overdoing it.
She sighed. “The special tonight is Irish beer stew with dumplings and Cadhla’s soda bread. For dessert, Ronan’s made a bread puddin’ with whiskey sauce.”
I nodded and looked around. “You got a menu?”